In the manufacture of tantalum capacitor anodes from powdered tantalum, part of the tantalum is used only as a contact and does not play an active part in the capacity forming mechanism. Tantalum, and other valve metals such as niobium and including alloys thereof such as niobium/tantalum alloys are expensive, and it is an object of the present invention to replace the non-contact valve metal with a less expensive material. One example of tantalum coated particles for use in electrolytic capacitors can be seen by reference to U.S. Pat. No. 3,708,728 incorporated herein by reference.